The World is Flux
by whatcanisay31
Summary: A cabin-fevered Sherlock doesn't know how to react when one of most ardent admirers, Molly, rejects his help in her pathology lab. Eventual Sherlock/Molly. Please review!


_If I make it to the next corner, he'll smile at me tomorrow._

Molly's trainers pounded on the pavement, her breath coming in short staccato bursts. The shops and cafes on the quiet London street slid past as she forced herself to continue her daily run.

_If I make it another half kilometer, he'll kiss me on the cheek again._

Molly had gone into pathology because of its inherent reason and sense. If you just sat down and worked hard enough, there was an answer to everything and an explanation could always be found.

_If I don't stop now, he'll notice me_.

But Molly's superstitious side always seemed to crop up when it came to Sherlock Holmes. She had been a slightly anxious child, careful to avoid cracks and hold her breath through tunnels, but something about the pale detective brought out her superstitions in full force. Not for the first time that week, Molly wished she was immune to Sherlock's particular charisma. Or at least his gaze.

_If I make it back to my building, he'll ask me out tomorrow_.

At least, Molly thought ruefully, Sherlock was doing wonders for her fitness levels.

ooo

Sherlock prowled the flat with the coiled energy of a confined panther. John fancied that if you looked close enough, you could actually see the hackles rising on his neck.

"Are you telling me that in a city of millions of people, half of whom are depraved enough to murder their own mothers, there isn't a single crime that has crossed Lestrade's desk?!" Sherlock snapped.

John sighed. One of these days, Sherlock was going to have to learn that the world didn't deliver horrific mass murders to his specifications just because it had been a couple of weeks since he had solved his last case.

"Sherlock, I'm just telling you what Lestrade told me. The city's been quiet. It's October, I imagine the murderers all took one look at the gloom and decided to go back to bed."

At those last words, Sherlock glared at John with a laser intensity that would have given any other man pause. But John had known Sherlock for too long to be disturbed by what he automatically calculated to be a 5 on the Sherlock Glare Scale. It was somewhat above "annoyed" (a 3) but below "almost insufferable" (a 6), which was understandable given the circumstances. It had been over a fortnight since their last case, and based on the new bullet holes in the wall, it appeared that Sherlock's mind was beginning to scratch itself raw due to lack of stimulation.

Unfortunately, Sherlock was not the kind of person whom one could simply take bowling when cabin fever set in.

"Not even a case of kidnapping? Surely someone's been abducted!"

"I'm sure someone has been, but Lestrade hasn't said anything to me."

"I bet Lestrade's hiding something from me. Doesn't want me intruding on his precious police territory. I'm going to hack to the electronic files again to look at all of the precinct's latest cases"

It was going to be a long week.

ooo

When Molly got to work on Monday, she was so startled to see Sherlock leaning against her desk that she almost dropped the cup of tea she had been clutching in her right hand. Luckily, she caught herself and had time to hide her shock before Sherlock looked up from the files he was flicking through. Molly glanced down and saw that the desk drawer which contained her reports was open.

"Molly, you've made some errors in these reports, but that's not why I'm here. You need my help."

"I do?"

"I am the world's only consulting detective and you are only human. Of course you need my help. And I take back what I said a moment ago. These errors are a perfect example of why you need my help. At this point in human development, you should at least be capable of avoiding simple arithmetic errors like these ones here." He held up a sheet of paper that was covered in red ink. The other sheets of paper in his hand had similar scrawled corrections. He had obviously been here a while.

"Sherlock, why are you here, correcting my reports?"

Sherlock made an impatient motion with his hand. "Lestrade claims he doesn't have any work for me, right before he had the nerve to tell me to take a few days off. Me! The idiots down there have all of my talent at their disposal and they're choosing to squander it. To add insult to injury, John was being impossible this morning, saying that I was going to commit a murder myself just have something to solve. Pointing out the flaws in logic of _that _particular statement only served to make him angrier, so here I am." He gestured with both hands at the spare expanse of Molly's lab.

"So you're here because you're…" The word "bored" hung on Molly's lips, but Sherlock's expression had already darkened. Not wanting to anger him any further, she stopped herself.

"Good. It's settled then. I'll be helping you until you have some semblance of organization and professionalism in your work. My god, the annotations alone are enough to set my teeth on edge!"

With those final words, he sat down in her chair, pen poised to correct the apparent multitude of errors. Molly set her mug down on the edge of the desk, staring uncertainly at Sherlock's back for a moment before turning to her new cases.

ooo

Molly tried to remember the last time she felt this anxious while performing routine medical tasks. Her mind flashed back to the first time she had been on a pathology rotation in medical school. The attending had had a body odor reminiscent of sweat and spoiled fish and when he observed the medical students during the tasks, the stench became so overwhelming that the entire world seemed to consist simply of that odor. By ten o'clock that morning, Molly would have happily taken Dr. Stinkfish over the detective breathing down her neck.

When Sherlock sighed for the thirteenth time that hour and opened his mouth to correct yet another one of her "appallingly elementary" mistakes, Molly's last nerve snapped.

"Leave, Sherlock!"

An expression of confusion flickered over the detective's face for the briefest of moments.

"I meant it! I don't come into _your _workplace and tell _you _what to do and how to do it, so you have no right to do that to me. I am a good pathologist," she winced at the weakness of the adjective, but continued, "and if I make mistakes, it's because I'm human. So please don't tell me I'm a screw-up because I've worked too hard to get to where I am to be a screw-up, and if you do think I'm such a failure, please keep it to yourself, because it's simply not a decent thing to do to point everything out all the time. Just because you know something doesn't mean you have to _say _it."

These last two words rang out across the lab, and seemed to hang, suspended, for a moment or two before fading away. After his initial confusion, Sherlock's features had settled into a neutral expression. He stood up smoothly.

"I did not mean to disturb you. I'll show myself out."

Before Molly could say another word, he had glided to the door. He paused for a moment and, without looking back, said quietly,

"And I never said you were a failure."

ooo

John found Sherlock sulking on the couch. Restraining the urge to roll his eyes, he asked,

"What's wrong now?"

"Nothing except that it appears the entire world has gone clinically insane overnight!"

"Molly didn't take too kindly to your input, then?"

Sherlock looked up sharply. He had not told John where he was going, but after a blistering lecture on the incompetence of the London police force and one of Sherlock's more dramatic exits, John had surmised that he was off to find a more fawning audience. Apparently Molly Hooper had not proved as awestruck as Sherlock had been hoping.

"Good, I'm glad that she's finally putting you in your place occasionally."

Icy silence from the couch.

"Oh, don't give me that" John said. "You're just mad because you can't just dazzle her with your superhuman qualities all the time now. You're going to have to work on your human skills if you want her to give you something to do."

Still no response. John dropped the bag of groceries he had been holding onto the counter and went to his room. On the couch, Sherlock stared unseeingly at the ceiling, endlessly calculating.


End file.
